


Dream's End

by crumblingwalls



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 00:50:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/143501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crumblingwalls/pseuds/crumblingwalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Happily ever after isn’t a duty one can shirk, after all. We must set an example.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream's End

**Author's Note:**

  * For [loathlylady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loathlylady/gifts).



> Warning for indirect mentions of rape.
> 
> Ten million thank yous to someone who will be named at a later date, without whom I would never write anything at all.

We met at a ball. Of course we did--where else would I meet anyone?

It was the ball to celebrate the birth of my first son. My first child had been a daughter, Moon, only eight months after we married, and then for years there was nothing. Philip had begun to fear that he’d never see an heir.

I say begun to fear, but that’s not true, strictly speaking. He had feared from the moment Moon was born, and we all knew it. I knew it, my maid knew it. His mistress--he had one, of course; they all did--knew it, and for a time I feared that she’d bear him the son that I hadn’t.

She died before her babe was born. A riding accident, they said. The horse must have spooked and bolted, for she fell in the woods on her way, I believe, to visit her grandmother. No one knew for days. The wolves found her before we did. When they found her, she’d been torn to--

I’m sorry. It’s a bit much, still, even after all these years. It was a tragedy, really. One does have to wonder what she was doing riding in the woods, pregnant, unescorted, but I shan’t speak ill of the dead. There but for the grace of God...

  


 _She adjusted her skirts, shifting on her chaise. The infant in its bassinet next to her whimpered in its sleep, and she stopped her embroidering long enough to reach out and rock its cradle, gently. She ignored me as she did this, as if I weren’t even there. As it should be, I suppose, for what am I but a vessel? A vessel to be filled at the lady’s leisure._

 _The baby quieted, and she returned to her story._

  


I’m sorry. As I was saying, we met at a ball. Sun, my boy, was a full year, then, and had been christened that morning. He was a little man that evening, dressed in his fine white dress and perched upon his papa’s lap. Once the dancing had started, I was excused, for we knew that the king of the hour was my son, and I was never good at balls. I was there as proof--the rumours had swirled, and Philip thought it best to make clear that Sun was more than just his son; he was Philip’s legitimate heir.

Philip wanted me at the ball, so, of course, I went. Defying him has never served me well, not since that day he woke me and took me away. I would have stayed--not forever, for I had no right to ask that, but for a day, a week. I would have wandered my castle once more, bid my father good night, gathered my things. Philip wanted to go, though, and the curse--the gift--had said true love.

Maybe it is, for him. Or was. Maybe something in me spoilt as I lay there all those years; a flower left on the vine too long will wilt in its time. Perhaps my time--

I digress.

After a dance with Philip and one with his father, I left the ballroom. I’d thought to return to my rooms, but passed through the drawing room on my retreat, and I found her there.

I was but twenty-two, and she was younger than I, even, naught but sixteen and already the bride of the prince of a neighbouring kingdom. She was beautiful, her hair black as jet and her skin as pale as lambswool. I hadn’t expected to see her there--hadn’t expected anyone, really, for why would they linger in the drawing room when the ballroom was flush with light and gaiety?

But she was there, quiet, just sitting and watching.

“My lady,” she said, and she inclined her head to me, politely, then told me her name and thanked me for my hospitality.

I had meant to go to my rooms. I was the queen. Talking to a girl, no matter her stature, was beneath me. But she stopped me as I left.

“We both slept,” she said, and I turned. The details of the meeting between my husband and I were not well known, back then. It had been said that he rescued a princess, and so grateful was she that she married him instantly.

I was that princess.

He had, in a manner of speaking, rescued me, though at the time, I was not grateful. I might be now, were someone to rescue me, but I’m no longer a princess; my appeal has waned. Princesses, I suppose, have waned. Men, paupers and princes alike, will ride out on their horses still, but no more do they ride to save the princess or for true love. Why marry when you can conquer?

  


 _She laughed, but the sound was bitter. As she’d spoken, she’d stopped her embroidering, and she looked down as if startled to find her hands idle. Her face flushed, just slightly, and she took up the needle again, whipping it like a weapon through the cloth._

 _I took a deep breath and held it, wondering if she would dismiss me. She was no longer a young woman--even discounting the many years of her deep slumber, she had more years than most could hope for. And I was to record her stories before they passed into nothingness, before she--_

  


I’m so sorry, I drifted off again.

I was telling you how I met her.

“We both slept,” she said, and I turned and went back to her. I hadn’t expected her to say that, though I knew that her circumstances were not entirely unlike my own. It was brave of her to say it, though, braver yet to say it to me. If the rumours had been false, if I had not slept--

But I had. I sat next to her and studied her, this woman-child, her fair skin and dark hair, her ruby lips and deep brown eyes.

“How long?” I asked. I’d heard the stories, of course, the tales of the prince so besotted with her small, motionless form that he’d taken her home, that he’d woken her.

I would not ask her how she’d woken, and if I had, she, I hope, would not have answered. But I had been cursed, as well. I knew how these things happened.

“Six years,” she said, her pale face flushing. “I was young.”

She still was young, and I wondered what her Prince would do when she was young no longer. Not that it would matter--the poor child was dead just a few years later. Magical causes, they’d said, something left from the curse.

It wasn’t the curse, but who would know? Only Philip, only me. I wasn’t going to tell. I had children--I had the kingdom. I had responsibilities. You understand. I had no choice--who could I tell? And our treaties with her husband’s land were never strong. We were allies, but only just.

I drew the curtains to the room and we sat together on the chaise, talking like sisters. For who else was there with whom we could speak? Not freely, not like that. We were both of us adept at the half-truths one tells with this sort of story. Rescued. Dreamless sleep. True love.

Half-truth is too kind a word, maybe, but I hesitate to call them--well, you know. I don’t wish to bring our discontent to anyone’s attention. Happily ever after isn’t a duty one can shirk, after all. We must set an example.

I must. It’s only me, now, isn’t it?

We spoke of the things we weren’t permitted to speak of, our heads bowed, whispering in the dark of the drawing room. Gusts of laughter and tinny music swept down the hall from the ball, but it held no sway over us. We were even then creatures of the dark, touched as we had been by magic.

  


 _She looked at me, startled, like she hadn’t expected to say that. She hadn’t, I was sure. Who would? Magic was--not forbidden, not quite, but nearly. It was spoken of, but that was all. Witches who drew suspicion would be put to death; wizards put into service for the Crown. Those touched by the otherworld were cursed to live a half-life, in shadows, under suspicion._

 _I wondered if I should strike this from the records. Say she fell asleep, that she took her leave. Say that she didn’t finish and spare her this legacy. She didn’t have long left, anyhow. No one would have to know._

 _Still, how could I? I am but the vessel; mine is not to censor or object._

  


I’ll say that now, I suppose. Magic. I’m old; my strength is fading.

We were creatures of magic, and our children bore the marks of our long sleeps--they, too, were touched by the fey. We didn’t know then, of course. She would never known, for she died when her only child, Eleanor, was but six, well before the fairies and the--

In the dark of the drawing room, we spoke for hours. Spindle, finger, tall tower; apple, curse, bed of moss. Rescue. _Rescue._ But before that, the dreaming, the beauty of it. They say, even now, that such sleep is dreamless, but what would they know? They never slept, not like that. But she knew. She knew what I had lost, what we had lost. What we had given up for ever after.

I do not say happily.

The ball was over, and her Prince came to find her, his eyes flashing with impatience as he bundled her off into their carriage. He was displeased to find her thus--knowing, as he did, the truth of the rumours that surrounded her, he had to suspect the truth of those that surrounded me. But it was not the last time we would meet, the last time we would while away the dark hours with tales of the dreaming.

I returned to my rooms alone.

Ever after, we would find each other, slipping away from balls, from parties, from state suppers; slipping into the shadow of the drapes or the darkness; slipping away into waiting rooms, powder rooms. Slipping, however briefly, out of the shadows of our husbands and away from the half-true rumours that still trailed behind us like waves, the ripples never quite dying out.

We were never inappropriate, not in action. Who could say if her lips brushed my ear, my hand lingered on her waist? Our words were enough, filling the spaces that neither of us could fill in any other way, the hole that had been left when we had been ripped from the dreaming, dragged back into the world of men and alliances and duty and ever after, all said through gritted teeth, through a smile.

I could tell you of ever after, and the happiness that we never found. Of the night she died, silent as she had been when he found her, porcelain skin finally showing the cracks she’d hidden so long. Of Eleanor and her father’s next bride, a cruel woman with two daughters just barely younger than Eleanor’s own mother had been. I could tell you of her father, his cape snagged in the tree, his horse ridden out from under him, his boots swaying in the breeze as he turned blue. Even then, Eleanor bore the stains of magic, and her stepmother, fearing it, locked her away…

I could tell you of the night my daughter Moon was stolen from me, only a child, lured into the bogs and left to drown, her cloak tangled into the roots and the branches, her golden head shining with such light that the dark creatures fled and left her there, alone, until she was taken into the sky.

I could--

  


 _She gasped, and I started to go to her, but she held up her hand, stopping me, and I froze, waiting. Surely she would release me now--our interview was at an end. Her words were heresy and would burn with her on her funeral pyre; they would not be added to the codex._

 _Her granddaughter began to wail, and the Lady rocked the bassinet without looking at the child. She was instead staring into the distance, head tilted as if she were listening to something far beyond the walls of the castle._

 _The child settled. The Lady shook her head and returned to me._

  


I could tell you stories, child. Stories that I dare not speak, not yet. Not in this place. But know that this cannot hold forever; this castle cannot withstand the forces of the otherworld. The dark creatures are angry and will return to take their rightful place--the kingdom cannot forever ignore the magic beating at its gates.

We were not the only ones, she and I. Not by far. Mayhap we were the only ones who slept, but the fairies have touched more than even we suspected, and their influence spreads. Our children and our children’s children shall bear it, the dark moving in the shadows, the shimmer of wings reflected in the mirror. The singing on the wind, the desperate calling--

Do not believe their lies.

  


 _That was the end of the interview. The guards came, then, to escort me out. They looked at me suspiciously, but they did not take my things--afraid, maybe, of the power of the scribe’s guild. Three days later, the Lady’s pyre was lit, its sparks soaring into the sky._

 _Calling the dark things._

 _The pages were not added to the codex. I cling to them despite the risks--were the Lords to find the pages, my penalty would be death. The role of a scribe is protective no longer; these creatures keep their own records in blood and bone and silver-white pebbles._

 _The King is dead. They tell us that this is better. They say the kingdom will grow stronger, that we will be happier. They say that their concern is for us, for the humans, for the good of all creatures._

 _I think of the things moving in the dark, of funeral pyres and sparks reaching to the sky. I think of spinning wheels and towers, of apples and moss. I think of the creatures that live in the palace, and I do not believe them._

**Author's Note:**

> Fairy tales alluded to, however briefly, include [Sleeping Beauty](http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0410.html#perrault), [Sun, Moon, and Talia](http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0410.html#basile), [Snow White](http://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/snowwhite/story.htm), [Little Red Riding Hood](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood), [Cinderella](http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/type0510a.html), and [The Buried Moon](http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/meft/meft24.htm).


End file.
